Best Mid-Range Smartphone ($300 ⇆ $500) in 2023

scrimshaw on 11/04/2023 - 16:02
Last edited 11/04/2023 - 16:18 by 1 other user

Moderators at OzBargain are now running yearly polls to decide the best products in popular categories that get asked repeatedly in the forum. Our aim is to have a central thread where users can vote on the items, suggest options and also change their vote throughout the year. For more information on how these polls work, or if you want to suggest a new poll that isn't covered already, please refer to our announcement thread here.

Question

What is your favourite Mid-range Smart Phone for the year 2023?

Mid-range: Phones with market prices between $300 AUD to $500 AUD. Good phones don't always have to be expensive, and there lots to choose from in this category.

The Winner of last year's poll was the Xiaomi Poco F3 (wait, again?), followed by the Samsung Galaxy A32 and the Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE.

Remember: You can change your votes at anytime, and suggest more than 1 product over the course of the poll.

How do I suggest products to What Should I Buy polls?

If you have a product that you would like to suggest for the poll (that is currently not in the Poll Options), you'll need to make a top-level comment (i.e. not replying someone else's comment) and fill up "Suggestions" text box just above your comment:

Suggestion box

Do try to make a sensible suggestion (e.g make sure the phone is still available to purchase) and include a brief argument as to why you would recommend the product. You can only suggest 1 product at a time.

Poll Options expired

This is part of What Should I Buy poll for 2023. Check out other recommendations from the OzBargain community.
Mobile Google Mobile Phone Motorola What Should I Buy Xiaomi Android

closed Comments

  • StrayfireX on 11/04/2023 - 16:07
    Suggested Google Pixel 6a

    Pixel 6a is often found for <$500.

    Solid device after a year of updates.

  • scrimshaw on 11/04/2023 - 16:08
    +1
    Suggested Motorola Moto g82

    The Motorola Moto G82, some of you might have been lucky enough to score this for as little as $199 from JB Hi-Fi. Typically sold at $499 but often reduced to $349 when on sale.

    6.6 inches, 1080p class display
    Hybrid Dual SIM (Nano-SIM, dual stand-by)
    Qualcomm Snapdragon 695 5G (6 nm) with 6GB of RAM
    50 MP, f/1.8 (wide), 1/2.76", 0.64µm, PDAF, Optical image stabilisation, plus 8 megapixel ultrawide and a useless 2 megapixel macro lens
    Li-Po 5000 mAh battery with 30 watt charging. That's pretty good

    For $350 (sometimes less) you can overlook the fact that it only has security updates till May 2024 and only one major OS update, till Android 13.

    But at the $499 RRP: that's not really acceptable and you should probably fork out a little extra for either Samsung or Google pixel.

  • payless69 on 11/04/2023 - 16:20

    Well if Marques gets his voice in parliament it got to be the double blinded Pixel 6a.

    • shxhshzhz on 11/04/2023 - 18:27

      Its RRP misses this price range by 100

      • Nillionaire on 11/04/2023 - 18:43

        My mistake

        Though that means A34, A54, A73, S21 FE, S23 are all in the same price range in the polls..

  • shxhshzhz on 11/04/2023 - 22:55

    Moto g62
    Was on sale recently at JB for around 250. Since has reverted back to 399 RRP which is probably not worth it but when on sale
    For some reason, it is still 249 at officeworks if anyone missed the sale at JB.
    - 6.5 inch 1080p display, 120hz, not OLED but justifiable by sale prices
    - 4GB/128GB
    - Has 5G
    - Snapdragon 480+
    - Web says it has good battery life from it's 5000mAh battery
    - Starts off on Android 12, it's a moto so software support of rivals like samsung is not expected
    - 50MP main camera

  • USER DC on 25/04/2023 - 17:46
    +1
    Suggested Samsung Galaxy A34 5G

    On sale @ Samsung Education store thanks to OP who posted that deal.

    Came with Free Galaxy Watch 4 40mm
    Overall good deal IMO for $479.20.

    5000 mAh Battery
    6GB RAM
    128 GB ROM
    MediaTek dimensity 1000 series chip with 5G
    AMOLED 120 Hz screen
    5G capability
    Just released this year thus can expect long term android updates, and security updates too.

  • dexx on 20/05/2023 - 19:55

    Moto Edge 30 is $349 currently at JB-Hifi

  • abctoz on 20/06/2023 - 21:42
    -2

    $200 iPhone faster than all that garbage

    • Rob-4x4 on 06/12/2023 - 08:43

      Sadly $200 Iphone is out of support for updates and does not run latest Apps

      • abctoz on 06/12/2023 - 21:51

        ? running latest update

        • Rob-4x4 on 08/12/2023 - 08:48

          Try buying a $200 iphone model that is still under OS support and receives regular updates. They will either be out of support or very soon to go out of support.
          Also with older iphones a lot of apps will not be supported on them (From experience)
          All this is unfortunate as otherwise they are excellent devices

          • abctoz on 08/12/2023 - 09:06

            @Rob-4x4: you’re not forced to update family member had an iPhone for 10 years, mine is 3 years old so I’m not so worried yet

            unless you’re required to have the latest patch for security don’t see the need to be so paranoid, you’re not worth the effort for Russian hackers

  • sohomel on 26/09/2023 - 11:42

    Looking forward the new Redmi note 13 pro. unbeatable product at its range

    • non-core promise on 27/09/2023 - 10:53

      Bear in mind the Snapdragon 7s gen 2 has been called out by the nerdier part of the Android community as a slightly overclocked Snapdragon 6 gen 1, which was unveiled in September 2022.

      So the base chip design itself is already a year old and the increased frequency being the only improvement means power/performance efficiency will also be worse.

      https://www.gizmochina.com/2023/09/24/snapdragon-7s-gen-2-re…

      The name is also suspiciously close to Snapdragon 7+ gen 2, which is a much better chip. It's likely been named this way to be confusing to casual consumers and make them think it's similar even though they're not even remotely close in any metric.

      Obviously the chip is only one part of a phone, but something to bear in mind regardless.

      If you want better international mobile band support, you will also have to wait a few months to see if it gets rebranded as a Poco phone, since original Xiaomi phones tend to not support as many bands as their rebranded Poco counterparts (e.g. see Redmi Note 12 Turbo vs Poco F5).

    • gakko on 06/10/2023 - 20:07
      +1

      The software always puts me off. Sure af not going to worry about flashing ROMs.

  • SydBoy on 03/11/2023 - 07:00

    anything with wireless charging and under $300 ?

  • sir_bazz on 23/11/2023 - 16:42
    Suggested Poco F5

    My Poco F5 was delivered yesterday after purchasing during the 11/11 sales for $497.

    Looks an upgrade from the other options in the poll.

  • dada111 on 01/12/2023 - 11:02

    redmi/poco is always the budget killer.

  • firestormx on 09/12/2023 - 17:57

    Considering the Motorola Moto g84 5G vs Oppo A98 5g vs POCO X5 5g. Any thoughts?

  • SydBoy on 21/12/2023 - 13:33

    This seems to be good site to compare phone based on features and price. At the bottom you add price of both model and it tells you if it is worth paying asking price for the features it provides… !

    So even though model may have better features but the asking price is too high then it may not be value for money… !

    https://nanoreview.net/en/phone-compare/motorola-moto-g84-vs…

Login or Join to leave a comment
Login Join